Replies

Auestion #1: should we care about the universe beyond how it affects us as humans?

To quote (roughly) George Carlin, talk about hubris. WE can’t kill the planet, and we certainly can’t hurt the universe.

Question #2: the kind of life we are most likely to discover elsewhere is microbial – so how should we view this lifeform?

Yes, the most likely thing we’ll find is single celled. The “Great Filter” is probably the incredibly rare, miraculous accident that lets multi-celled life arise. The mitochondria are the powerhouse of a cell, and ALL complex life is descended from a single biological accident ... and it happened after billions of years of life on Earth through multiple biochemistries. (Carbon reducing, methane, sulfur digesting, plants, animals).

If we arrive on a planet with slime, we can choose to avoid contaminating it so we can study it better ... or terraform it accurately. If it has multi-celled life, then yes, quarantine it while studying it because it may be the only one in our galaxy that could eventually produce something other than slime molds.

Question #4: is there a duty to protect the environment on other planets?

So that we can adequately study it, sure. So that complex life, once we know how rare it is, can thrive - yes. Are we morally mandated to avoid any potentially habitable planets? Nope, not unless there is someONE obviously there.

Question #5: what, besides biological contamination, would count as violating such an obligation to treat that planet’s environment with respect? Drilling for core samples, perhaps, or leaving instruments behind, or putting tyre tracks in the dirt?

This is irrational. It takes “leave no trace” ethos and applies it to alien worlds. In theory, the Mars rover is violating a sacred and empty planet, and the rover on an asteroid is an affront to the Gods.

Liberals need to stop this Mother Earth (Father Universe?) ethos that says shut up, stay home, live in the dark eating mung bean curd or else Mad Mamma will send horrors straight out of Revelations. They’re ripping off Christianity’s hellfire and brimstone (seas will boil, oceans to acid, all plants die, famine, pestilence, death) and applying it to theoretically and likely EMPTY planets.

That we’re committing a sin if we visit even dead worlds?
Talk about human hatred.

Question #6: what about asteroids?

See last sentence to #5.

Question #7: what considerations might offset arguments in favour of behaving ethically in space?

Survival of the only intelligent species. Or multiple species, if we choose to bring dolphins along. Will environmentalists let us explore space if we promise to save the dolphins? Whales are too big ...

Question #8: given that the Earth is not the only potential home for human beings, what reasons for protecting its environment would remain once we can realistically go somewhere else?

In the Larry Niven book “Fallen Angels”, he revealed an interesting environmentalist trope ... environmentalists in favor of space development so we could move industry off world and turn the planet back into wilderness. This was even used in the Sterling novel “Drakon”. In either case, space travel becomes a MEANS for better protecting the Earth, not a reason to ruin it.

Certainly if we are affected by the universe we should care about it.

Our Solar System is not stationary and moves through the galaxy which moves through the universe. We should be aware of what is happening around us to see how it affects us.

Our solar system is probably a little less than 5 billion years old yet the universe is over 13 billion years old. Civilization only happened on this planet about 6000=10000 years ago and we only became industrial about 200 years ago. It has been less than 100 years that we have been more than remotely aware of the local solar system much less the universe.

So far what I have said has only been to put us on the same page, now I will get to my point. It is most unlikely that we are not alone in the universe. There are solar systems 3 times our age which would mean that if a world progressed just like ours that the inhabitants of it would be 10,000,000,000 years ahead of us. I can't even imagine what our world would be like 100 years from now, try 1000 years now try 10 billion.

If the inhabitants of advanced worlds don't want us to see them we won't.

Because as humans we have very short life spans the time it takes to get electromagnetic communications across great distance means we won't be communicating with others who are light years away, if you have to wait 10000’s of years for reply to a question you will have forgotten the question or it will be meaningless.

I don't know where God came from but if we were to meet someone from a civilization that was 10 billion years old to us they would be gods. Kind of like the representation of the character “Q” from “Star Trek”. He was god like but was a child. Whatever he was he was normal for his society or civilization.

I think it is great to have knowledge of what is around us and perhaps even important if we are able to divert some asteroid that would tear the earth apart if we don't change it's course.

I don't begrudge the money spent learning about where we are but people might be wise to learn about the God who placed us here and what He has planned for us and how He expects us to return to Him and be like Him.